I asked more than a dozen expert psychiatric colleagues, and myself, the questions they most frequently receive about psychiatric medications from people who take them or their families. Here are a dozen of those many questions; the responses are mine.

Many legal cases, with closed books due to settlement, document cases of suicides and homicides in individuals who had not been violent prior to taking medication, and often they were newly prescribed or on an increased dose.

The magazine ScienceNews begins a recent article on depression with a blanket judgment: "A massive effort to uncover genes involved in depression has largely failed." A general reader would probably not feel the shock waves that spread from this assessment.

Working with mindfulness and meditation in this way is only one approach that is showing encouraging results in studies for preventing relapse in patients with depression. However, there may be other ways that are supportive to you.

A Syracuse, N.Y. jury has awarded a $1.5 million medical malpractice verdict to the family of a man who committed suicide. I was the medical expert for the family.

People who become obese in association with their antidepressant or bipolar disorder treatment are not like others who struggle with eating issues all their adult life. Many of them had been thin before drug treatment; they had healthy habits.

I have been on drugs for about six years, give or take. Prozac and Buspiron. Prozac for depression and Buspiron for its evil twin sister, anxiety. There were others, too. I can't remember how I got started on them -- well, we can surmise I was depressed.

On the face of it, medication compliance makes sense. Patients should take their medications as instructed and families should ensure that they do. But is it that simple?

Although it is encouraging to see the legal system to some degree catching up with drug company malfeasance, there are a number of problems with the criminal and civil cases brought by the Department of Justice against drug companies.

Journalists love declaring that psychiatric medications symbolize some slice of the zeitgeist. So I can't say I was entirely surprised when I opened my mailbox the other day and saw New York Magazine's latest cover article proclaiming that this is the era of Xanax.

By Ricki Rusting (Click here for the original article) Antidepressants restore well-being to many people, but sometimes at the cost of such side e...

As a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of women during pregnancy, I am regularly consulted by pregnant women, their families and their obstetricians about whether or not to use medication to treat a clinical depression during pregnancy.

Popular herbal preparations of St. John's Wort have become an excellent first line of defense in mild depression for those concerned about pharmaceutical side effects. But did you know that a diluted homeopathic form of St. John's Wort is highly useful for a wide variety of additional health-related problems?

Many people refuse to even consider having their loved on put on any psychotropic medication for any reason. And that's understandable. But today's medications, which can be given in doses that don't overly sedate patients, can also be effective and improve a patient's overall quality of life.